Her father said he put Gemma to sleep between 7:30 and 8 p.m. the evening before, April 24, noting her bedroom door was closed and the front door was locked, documents state. He went to bed after watching television but saw the girl's bedroom door open and the front door ajar when he woke up about five hours later. The father said he searched the area and the home before calling police.

The mother told officers she was up until about 2 a.m. and was awakened about an hour later by her husband when he discovered Gemma wasn't in the house.

Around 10 a.m., Thursday, April 25, hours after Gemma's father reported her missing, she was found by a passerby standing on the side of the road in the 14000 block of Harbaugh Church Road, about a mile from where she was taken, police said.

Thomas Andrew Dewald becomes a suspect

Gemma described a red brick house during a forensic interview. Police canvassed the area where Gemma was found and stopped at a house that matched the description Gemma gave, which was "directly beside" the spot where Gemma was found by a passerby.

Thomas Andrew Dewald.(Photo: Franklin County Jail)

Police spoke with the homeowner, who said her grandson, identified as Dewald, had been living there for the past four to five weeks. She described his routine, saying he goes to bed around 8 p.m. on work nights, wakes up around 5:20 a.m. to get ready and leaves about an hour later.

Dewald's grandmother told police she was in his room checking to ensure the bed was made when she heard what sounded like a baby crying coming from the wall near an air conditioning unit, according to court documents. She said she was unable to find the source of the noise and couldn't confront Dewald because he had already left.

When police searched Dewald's bedroom, they found several strands of long blond hair similar to that of Gemma's inside a large wooden chest and several large strips of black tape containing shoe print impressions, dirt, grass and more strands of the blond hair, according to documents.

Dewald returned to the home shortly after and gave authorities permission to search his car and take a DNA sample.

Dewald confesses to kidnapping

Police said Dewald admitted to kidnapping Gemma when they talked with him.

He also said he was responsible for an attempted burglary that had been reported at about 3:45 a.m., Sunday, in the 14000 block of Lower Edgemont Road, in which someone entered through an unlocked window on the first floor but fled after hearing a dog and the awakened residents.

While in custody at the police barracks, Dewald told police that he had searched the neighborhood for children playing in their yards — mostly unsupervised — and for houses with no video surveillance nearby. He said he found children at two homes he believed to have "deplorable conditions," documents state.

He claimed to have been in Gemma's residence for an hour after entering through an unlocked front door before he took the girl from her bedroom. He said he would have taken Gemma's brother from the residence, too, but he would have been too heavy.

Dewald said he took Gemma to his home, and they laid in bed together, fully clothed. But, Dewald noted, at some point his erect genitalia may have touched her through his clothes and he masturbated near her, according to court documents.

He later bound her with tape and placed her in the wooden chest, telling her he would be back around noon that day, police said. Gemma was found to be gone from the chest when Dewald got home, he said, adding he was unaware how she might have escaped.

Dewald charged with kidnapping, burglary, corruption of minors, etc.

Police said in the arrest affidavit that Dewald was questioned about an attempted burglary at a residence other than Gemma's.

Dewald told them he was able to get in through the window of that home because there was a partially open screen, and he put tape on the bottom of his shoes to avoid leaving shoe prints, police said.

Dewald went upstairs where he found three children sleeping in their bedrooms. He decided to leave them alone because of the "acceptable conditions" in the residence, he told police, according to court documents. Dewald said he heard a barking dog as he fled through the kitchen door.

Dewald was arraigned on the charges against him on the morning of Tuesday, April 30. He was sent to Franklin County Prison after he was denied bail. Online court records indicate the judge denied bail to "ensure the safety of the community."

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. on May 14 in Franklin County Central Court.

Dewald has juvenile record for indecent assault on a child

Dewald had previously been found to have indecently assaulted a child, according to court records obtained by the York Daily Record/Sunday News.

In a petition of delinquency filed in Franklin County, Thomas Dewald, then 16, was alleged to have committed aggravated indecent assault of a child and indecent assault of a person less than 13. The case was filed on Jan. 28, 2015.

Few records are available in juvenile cases, and it's unclear what punishment he received. But court documents do indicate that the first charge was withdrawn and that Dewald was adjudicated delinquent of the other charge. Eventually, the case was listed as, "Termination of Supervision - Conditions Satisfied."

High school classmates of a Waynesboro man accused of abducting a 4-year-old girl and hiding her in a wooden chest said he wrote a "hit list" of fellow students while he was a senior at Millville High School in Columbia County.

Some classmates remember Thomas Dewald as a quiet kid. He appeared to have few friends, keeping to himself and hiding his face behind his laptop, said former classmate Stormi Albertson.

He transferred to the small, rural school of about 300 students to live with his grandparents during their junior year of high school, she recalled, and that's really all she knew about him.

Students became aware of Dewald's list in a history class during senior year. He had his laptop open on his desk and a document pulled up on the screen. The words "hit list" were typed across the page, followed by the names of at least 10 other classmates, said Jenna Chilcote. Her name was the first on the list.

Chilcoate said a number of students, including herself, told teachers about the list, but it didn't seem like they took it seriously. “It didn't make sense why he wouldn't get in trouble for this," she said.

Life hasn't been the same for Joan McFadden since she returned home from breakfast April 29.

Two police officers were waiting for her. At first she thought they were Seventh-Day Adventists there to share church pamphlets.

They were there to talk about 4-year-old Gemma Moats, who had gone missing from a home about a mile away a few days before and was found 12 hours later standing near McFadden's home on Harbaugh Church Road.

The next thing they told her nearly gave her a heart attack, she said.

Her live-in grandson, Thomas Dewald, was suspected of abducting the girl from her bed in the 12000 block of Pen Mar Road in the early hours of April 25 and hiding her in his bedroom, just down the hall from where McFadden and her husband slept. Dewald masturbated while lying beside the girl, then bound her with black tape and put her inside a wooden chest, according to police.

"This is the first day I've been able to talk about it without crying," she told a reporter while sitting on a chair in her living room Friday afternoon.